Nora Frost, a diplomat and influencer by nature, is enterprising her passion into Dos Culturas.com (Spanish for "two cultures"), a business specializing in public relations and marketing para todo ("for everybody"). Follow her at twitter.com/NoraFrost"and Twitter.com/DosCulturas.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

Heard it through the clothesline

There was a time when the main source of information was the clothesline. Unintentional, perhaps, but it was a place where neighbors could look across the yard to see if a family had company (additional laundry), if a family was growing (little booties and clothes diapers flapping in the wind) or if there was a scandal a-brewing (and this whole time we thought Miss Jones was single…)

That clothesline still exists today, only in digital form. Social media (Facebook, Twitter and the now-neglected MySpace) have become the new way of listening in on conversations. (Well… that and the dreaded Bluetooth loud talker. You know who you are.)

Social media is a good way to keep up with what is going on. Information? Yes. Gossip? Of course. More than anything, successful social media will, inform, invite, interact. (Got that alliteration from Josh Donat who runs the Twitter site for the San Antonio Missions @MissionsMiLB at the last BMPR meeting.)

Inform. There are many conversations taking place at once. Some about politics, others about pop culture, travel, news… it’s a digital slice of ordinary life. Some is mundane (the socks on the line, if you will) while other conversations can be a bit more intriguing. The bottom line: If you don’t want to air dirty laundry, don’t. You don’t need to place your unmentionables out on the line/ share photos of your foot fungus online if you don’t want to. And please. DON’T.

Invite. Pretty soon you begin to form cliques. Sports, news, business, international, regional, pop culture… you begin to enjoy the thoughts, ideas, messages of certain circles and perhaps begin recommending them to others. In Twitter speak, this is very popular to do via #followfriday or #ff when you endorse a person or a personality for others to get to know on the day of the week that is (TA-DA!) Friday.

Interact. True, social media is a way to self-promote blogs, projects and ideology, but honestly, it’s not interesting if you talk about you, you, you, you, usually (clever man, that Toby Keith). Interact. Jump into conversations. Share ideas. In fact, it is quite presumptuous to aimlessly put information out there that may not stick. On the business end, it is a way to build a brand or client personality. Try conversing. Share some ideas, receive some ideas. You will gain credibility and find social media more enjoyable as well.

Like most things in life, use discretion. Remember you can never truly take anything back once it has reached the world wide Web. Would your grandmother, clergy or boss disapprove? Then you should too. Most of all- HAVE FUN! Inform, invite, interact.

Whether you realize it or not, people notice and may be talking about your laundry (product or client). What are you putting out there? What does your clothesline say about you?